


Sense of Psyche

by Cinnamonbookworm



Series: allusions [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Allusions to smut, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Soul-Searching, barry is a lone wolf, felicity feels a void, references to blackvibe, spoilers from comic con 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there's a lot of soul-searching done that summer.<br/><i>"Felicity’s left alone for the day, but it’s really been the longest time she’s had to herself since they left Starling City and she wonders what this vague sense of a void is that is left in her chest. It doesn’t have anything to do with Oliver - at least she thinks it doesn’t - it’s just more obvious now that he’s gone and the whole new-relationship haze has been lifted. There’s something missing. Something other than a Roku stick for their tv."</i><br/><i>"Now Iris looks at him with the forgiving accusation that it’s his fault that Eddie died. It’s all his fault. And he doesn’t know how he can face her after that. Knows that’s why he seems to turn away every time she comes in the room.<br/>Because everyone in Central City already knows about Iris’ connection to the Flash, and he can’t let her get hurt because of who he is or what he does. No one else can get hurt. Guys like us don’t get the girl."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense of Psyche

**Author's Note:**

> so this was fun to write. lots of emotional whiplash. fun fact: tyler is actually based on a kid i was a camp counselor for and i figured oliver should be a counselor because stephen amell said at comic con that we would find oliver “helping children” at the beginning of season 4. actually most of this is based off of comic con interviews, from barry being a lone wolf to felicity’s friend working computers for team arrow to diggle getting a helmet so be prepared for major spoilers.  
> also: i am not writing this as barry being in love with felicity. he feels some sort of love towards her, but that’s really up to you as a reader, since i pretty clearly established in allusions that they’re not going to explore anything with each other. also: you do not need to have read allusions to understand this fic, just be caught up with arrow and the flash

psyche:

the human soul, self, the mind.  named after psyche, a maiden who, after undergoing many hardships due to venus’ jealousy, reunited with cupid and was made immortal by jupiter; she personifies the soul joined to the heart of love

 

**May**

The car is silver. Well, kind of.

She would really say it’s more of a steely color, but it’s kind of hard to tell with the sunlight bouncing off the hood, and honestly, she doesn’t really care.

Because there are so many better things to focus on.

She can focus on the feel of her lace jacket against her arms. She can focus on the warmth of Oliver’s smile as they entertain the idea of stopping at a hotel for the night. She can focus on the stupid dopey grin that’s been plastered on her face ever since they left.

And honestly, if he keeps looking at her like that and not focusing on the road they’re going to crash into something, she’s sure of that, and she’s voicing her opinion as loudly and as teasingly as she can because if they pull over one more time she’s sure they won’t make it to Coast City by Wednesday.

They’ll be lucky if they make it to the hotel at this rate. But she could care less. All her cares disappeared around the time they crossed Starling City city limits. Except for her cares about coffee, and tablets, and okay maybe she’s just _ignoring_ her cares for now, but she thinks she’s cared far too deeply about far too much so it’s time to tone that down a bit. Or at least pretend there’s not a thrum of worries in the back of her head about Thea and Laurel and Diggle and everyone.

“If you keep looking at me like that we’re going to crash this Porsche.”

And he takes one of his hands off the wheel and starts tracing circles on her thigh. “Looking at you like what?” Oliver asks, playing innocent.

“Like I’m a horrible car accident, like the one we’re about to get into - by the way - and you can’t look away.”

He chuckles at that. “We’re not going to get into a horrible car accident.”

“Just keep your hands to yourself until we get to the hotel, mister, and we won’t.”

 

XXX

 

The band on Iris’ finger is silver. But, under the cloudy sky, it looks more like a dull grey. And she keeps twisting it around her finger, refusing to even look as the casket is lowered into the ground. He so desperately wants to pull her close and comfort her, but she’s been brushing off everyone’s sympathetic touches, even Joe’s.

And he can’t pull her close when what he needs to do is push her away. Because he knows she’s the one who wrote the article that hailed the Flash as the hero of Central City. Because he knows how awful that must’ve been for her because it’s his fault that Eddie died. It’s his fault that the real hero of Central City is currently being lowered into a coffin. It’s his fault that his best friend is currently in so much grief that he’s reluctant to touch her for fear that she might shatter. And while that sense of deja vu might’ve seemed ironic months ago, now it just feels like he can’t save anyone. He can’t help anyone.

So the least he can do is to keep them out of the shadow of death that seems to lurk behind him.

But he cannot resist the urge to pull Iris close to him, out of reach of the raincloud that’s been hovering over her head for a week, and surprisingly, she lets him. Iris grabs onto the arm he’s wrapped around her front like a lifeline as she leans back into him, finally looking up to the funeral and letting him give her solace at a time when she needs it most.

They stand there, together, neither quite wanting to separate because they know that, when they do, they’re just going to  go back to avoiding each other because of the unbearable amount of anguish they both are in over the unspoken events of the past week.

And the graveyard may be silent but Barry can still feel the chaos of the black hole swirling around him, a heavy reminder that they’re burying an empty coffin and it’s his fault.

Neither of their breaths are that steady, and he can barely make out the last shovel of dirt through his tear-filled eyes.

Iris turns away from the scene, towards him, and they press their forehead together not wanting to say anything - not _needing_ to say anything. Inhaling each other’s company like one last breath before they go under again.

“Barry…” she starts.

“I know.” he tells her in reply because they can’t have this conversation, not now.

And then they do break away, and he goes under again.

 

**June**

 

They don’t make it all the way down the coast of California like they’d planned, because they end up in Santa Cruz and get enchanted by the town. So Felicity rents them an apartment near the ocean, much to Oliver’s protests that he doesn’t need anything this fancy.

But she figures they’ve earned it. And it just starts that way.

One day they’re at the beach and Oliver decides they need boogie boards so they get them and wipe out too many times to count because neither of them have ever done it that much before. The day ends at sunset when the lights of the boardwalk come on and the ocean grows cold and she ends up curled up in his hoodie as they walk in their bathing suits back to the apartment, sand covering them from head to toe.

One day they’re eating takeout and Felicity complains they should really start eating real food so she goes out and buys some pots and pans and silverware and he goes to the local farmer’s market and comes back with carrots and mushrooms and broccoli and chicken and even pasta. And they decide to try and cook together because _why the hell not?_ and Felicity ends up burning the chicken but Oliver makes a delicious stir fry and they decide he should be the one to do all the cooking from now on because she can’t cook real food to save her life.

And things just sort of fall into place.

Now she’s lying on the bed, pinned under him as he tickles her, squirming to get out but genuinely having a good time, because he somehow wrangled a job at a summer camp nearby and she’d been teasing him about finally working again so she won’t be the only breadwinner anymore.

Then she’s left alone for the day, but it’s really been the longest time she’s had to herself since they left Starling City and she wonders what this vague sense of a void is that is left in her chest. It doesn’t have anything to do with Oliver - at least she thinks it doesn’t - it’s just more obvious now that he’s gone and the whole new-relationship haze has been lifted. There’s something missing. Something other than a Roku stick for their tv.

So, she sends a text to Cisco asking how it’s going now that he’s up in Starling helping them out with computers until she can get one of her old MIT friends in there. He doesn’t answer right away, so she sighs and lays down on the bed and contemplates hacking Starling City’s security cameras just to see if everyone’s okay.

And she’s not sure whether or not she wants them to be okay without her.

 

XXX

 

His coffee tastes like could-have-beens. To be fair, he’d forgotten about it sometime around noon and now, more than 12 hours later, it sits lonely on his bedside table, with drops still coating his tongue with cold regret that was left out to stew.

Iris might be awake, he can’t be sure, because the lock of her door clicked hours ago, but lately, she’s been staying awake into the twilight hours of the morning, which she’s told him over breakfasts that are slightly reminiscent of school mornings from the past, except a heavy silence hangs over the table like an oversized neon sticky note, forcing them to reconcile with the reason that Iris is living with them again. Because Eddie died. Quite possibly the reason that neither of them seem to be getting much sleep lately.

He’d gotten up from the sheets of his childhood with the intention of doing something, anything, to try and avoid the insomnia that had attached itself to him the night following the day Eddie died. The coffee cup had sat, slightly stuck to the cedar wood nightstand, with the unspoken promise of a quick renewal of energy, enough for him to stop staring at his ceiling with only thoughts of how everything went wrong to keep him company.

The problem in that plan being that the coffee’s too bitter; the reason it had been placed down in the first place. The problem in that plan being that the last time the taste of could-have-beens filled his mouth he was on the phone with Felicity. Her voice filling his ear, going on and on about beaches and sunsets and porsches, and, at the time, her happiness had emanated through the phone and given him the same infectious cheerfulness, but now the memory fills him with nothing but a regret almost as bitter as the coffee itself.

Because this wasn’t the plan.

They were supposed to suffer together, they were supposed to feel heartbreak together. Their wavelengths too similar for anything else to happen. But now she lays a million miles away from him, probably in a hotel room with Oliver and probably not staring at the ceiling filled with the taste of could-have-beens.

And what a pile of could-have-beens. Metaphorical might-have-happened’s clutter his mind like thrown out manuscripts piled high to the window, where a summer breeze blows into his room, fluttering them with the delicacy of butterfly wings.

Hot air, like the kind that whooshed past him as he sped his way out of Nanda Parbat, and away from her. The first time they’d ever parted ways without saying goodbye, but not the first time he had run away from the something that’s been pooling in his chest since the train right below the overwhelming garden of love for Iris. Not the first time his cowardice had let her down. Not the first time he had proven that he didn’t deserve her. The breeze a reminder that chemistry and a connection doesn’t keep him from existing only as a cameo in her world.

A softball game is going on a few blocks over, the sound of ball on bat audible from where he lays, but the soft _ping_ stirs a memory of a much louder sound, the sound that causes Iris to cry the way she has been crying, although she won’t admit it, with loud proclamations that “she’s fine!” and “seriously stop worrying about me, Barry, don’t you have people to save?”. As if the first and foremost thought in his head isn’t always whether or not she’s doing okay.

And he has been wondering. Wondering when she turns on the comms while he’s doing a solo mission and forces him to talk to her because she’s terrified her best friend will die without anyone knowing. Wondering when Oliver’s words about getting the girl will stop rattling around in his head because obviously it’s a thing that cannot happen while he continues to be the Flash, no matter what Felicity says.

No matter what Iris says.

 

**July**

 

“Laurel! Behind you! Thea we need some backup over on the East Side. Dig, I still can’t get over you in that helmet.”

Okay, so she’s not _technically_ supposed to be helping. This is supposed to be a vacation, she’s supposed to have retired, but Oliver is out for the moment and she misses her team and she misses this sense of purpose.

And… well… if the bonus is that she can get her friends out of some sticky situations while simultaneously catching up with Laurel, then yeah, she’s all for this.

The only thing is that Oliver doesn’t know. It’s not like she’s been keeping it from him _intentionally_ \- well, kind of intentionally, but it’s just because she’s not sure how he’ll react. He probably won’t be angry, just… guilty. She knows he’s going to think he dragged her away from a life she loved to be with him, and that’s just not true.

She willingly left that life, but there’s been a thought at the back of her mind nagging her that they’re going to have to go back sometime. Which may or may not have anything to do with those late night skype sessions she’s been having with Cisco relating to armor and green leather… not at all.

And maybe she’s worried about them.

Maybe she knows Laurel’s not dead but is wondering whether or not she ever went to that museum exhibit she was talking about before they left. Maybe she knows Thea’s aim is wicked and so is her smile, but how is she dealing with Roy being gone? Maybe she knows that baby Sara said her first word, but she just wants another chance to see the little girl laugh before she gets too old.

“Felicity?” Oliver’s voice calls and she quickly turns off her computer.

“Shit.” She whispers before turning around to see Oliver come in from his day at the camp, with a worried look on his face that she wants to kiss right off of him. And she does.

She hums against his lips happily and he lifts her up with one arm in that way that he does and carries her to the couch so they can kiss some more.

“So, how was your day at camp?” She asks him as he sits down on the couch so she’s straddling him, recently cut-short blonde hair falling down around her face.

He laughs at her question good-naturedly, remembering some story he has yet to tell her. She remembers how the first time she’d heard this laugh she’d been so shocked but now it’s as natural of a sound to her as the sound of ocean waves in the distance. “Tyler decided we should re-enact _Thriller_ at lunchtime today.”

Tyler’s one of his slightly rowdier kids. Barely six years old but already full of energy and ideas. Constantly dancing and playing and being himself and avoiding all the gender roles already being forced onto the kids. He was one of the kids that Oliver liked working with the most, although being a struggle at times.

“Please tell me you filmed it.”

“Well, _I’m_ not the technology one in this relationship…” He teases, and she grabs his face in response, bringing his lips dangerously close to hers.

“But you know how to work a camera phone.”

“That I do.” He replies, smiling, and she can’t help but bring her lips down to his again.

They don’t get to watching the video until much later.

She doesn’t tell him about her conversations with their team in Starling, either.

 

XXX

 

The black hole brought about new meta’s, because, _of course it did._

So Barry’s dealing with that.

And now that Cisco’s back from Starling and Iris has stopped hating him, they’ve started forcing him to accept help.

Iris is in STAR Labs more often than he is these days, and when he is there, they don’t really talk, just stare at each other with those sad, wistful glances. He thinks he’s barely heard her voice outside of the comms in weeks.

“Run, Barry, run.” She whispers into his ear and it sounds so much different than when Dr. Wells would do it. It sounds like faith and strength and a thousand promises they both have yet to break. But her eyes tell a different story. Because now she looks at him with the forgiving accusation that it’s his fault that Eddie died. It’s all his fault. And he doesn’t know how he can face her after that. Knows that’s why he seems to turn away every time she comes in the room.

Because everyone in Central City already knows about Iris’ connection to the Flash, and he can’t let her get hurt because of who he is or what he does. No one else can get hurt.

_Guys like us don’t get the girl._

A fact that’s been proven time and time again and by Oliver and Felicity themselves, who gave up everything to go away together, something he can’t just do. He can’t just give up on these people. He doesn’t have a team to take over.

And anyway, it’s not like Iris would run away with him anyway.

But the logic is there. People around him get hurt. People around him die. People around him shoot themselves and get sucked into black holes and no matter how hard he looks, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t find them.

Maybe it’s for the best that they’re avoiding each other, though. He’s not sure his hands can touch her face when they have this much blood on them and not stain her as well.

 

**August**

The camp is done and the kids are going back to school and for Oliver that means more time at the apartment and for Felicity it means more of the nearly-suffocating sugary sweet doses of affection that reminds her of when she was a teenager. And really, she’s missed it.

She’s missed always waking up next to him and going swimming and just going around town like some mix of teenagers and honeymooners. And all the sex, yeah she’s missed the sex - not that they weren’t having a lot of it anyway. But the honeymoon phase can’t last forever.

Their first real fight as a couple isn’t about her helping the team in Starling or him joining the League or anything like that. No, it’s about towels.

Specifically one towel.

There’s this really big fluffy white one that they’d bought at Sam’s Club early on in their trip and never really used because they hadn’t been together. It’s a sunny monday when Felicity comes out of the shower wearing that towel, and Oliver gets upset. Not raging Arrow-y levels of upset, just miffed, which is more than he’s gotten with her in the past few months.

“That’s _my_ towel.”

“I thought it was _our_ towel.”

“Felicity, you have nine perfectly good towels. That one is _mine_. That’s why it’s so big.”

“So you automatically get the best towel because it’s the biggest?”

“Yes!”

“Well, you don’t deserve it. Not when you keep leaving all your wet towels on _my side of the bed_.”

“That’s hardly fair.” He sputters. “You can’t compare that to this, those are… totally different things!”

“Oliver, it’s just a towel, you can live. It’s not like I planned a suicide mission and didn’t tell anyone.”

His face falls. And she swears, she didn’t mean to say it, but now it’s out there and they’ve been avoiding the topic for months, distracted by jobs and cooking and… other things, but now it’s all out there on the table.

“I didn’t mean…” she starts at the same time he says “Felicity.”

He says her name the way he always does, like it’s a plea into the universe that she’ll just stay a second longer. Like she hasn’t spent the last few months by his side.

“I never intended,” Oliver begins, quietly, like he’s trying not to scare her, but really she’s worried that she scared him.

“I know. And I’m sorry. But, Oliver, we can’t keep tiptoeing around this. It was a thing that happened and yes it was a giant mistake, but we are still those same people who had this conversation when the world was falling apart and the only certain thing was that I was never getting you another cup of coffee. I know it’s nice to pretend to be normal but we… aren’t.”

“I will never stop apologizing for that, Felicity.”

“You don’t _need_ to keep apologizing for it, Oliver, you just need to recognize that our lives are still the same lives that we used to put on the line every night. _You_ are still Oliver Queen and _I_ am still Felicity Smoak and _I love you._ ”

His smile returns after that, albeit shakily. “Even when I’m being an idiot about towels?”

“ _Especially_ when you’re being an idiot about towels.”

“You know, you say that you don’t want wet towels on the bed,” he starts, suddenly sure of himself again.

“And _you_ say you don’t want me wearing your towel…”

“Want to compromise?”

“Hell yes.” Felicity replies with a devilish grin and then they’re on the bed and she honestly could care less how damp it gets.

 

XXX

 

Barry trips.

And usually it wouldn't’ be that bad, except he’s running fast - too fast and he trips and falls and no one is on the comms to help him, so he ends up just lying in a dumpster for an hour, waiting as his bones slowly move back together. And, as he stares up at the skyline visible from the alley, he comes to a realization: he’s lonely.

The problem with being a lone wolf is that it leaves him… well… alone. And he can’t help but flash back to a time where a bee sting ended up with Caitlin and Cisco and Ray and Felicity hovering around him in worry. Where he didn’t end up alone in a dumpster trying to ignore the smell of rotten meat and just let himself heal.

He misses Iris.

He misses her voice in his ear and her lips on his forehead. He misses watching movies with her and breakfasts and smiles and inside jokes and… Fuck - he thinks his ribs might be broken.

And then, a voice calls from somewhere outside the dumpster, and he thinks it might be an angel because there’s no way that that’s Iris.

Except it is.

“Barry!” She calls, and all he can do is groan in response.

And then, there she is, hovering over him and looking scared out of her mind. For a moment, they just stare at each other, and then Cisco comes running behind her and flinches a bit when he sees the way Barry’s arm is bent. “Okay, we’re going to need to get you back to the lab.”

“Help me lift him.” Iris shouts, and then two hands are on his arms and he’s being carried to Iris’ car.

And then he sits on the table where Caitlin used to work as Iris helps him pop his shoulder back into place, and then she grabs his face and he can’t do anything but hold his breath.

“Barry, you’ve _got_ to stop this. I get that you’re hurting, I’m hurting too, but you can’t - we can’t just push each other away and think that’s going to make the pain go away, because it’s not. Because I look at the guy in front of me, who’s supposed to be my best friend, and I don’t even recognize him anymore.”

“I can’t let anyone else get hurt…” He lets out but it’s to no avail, because she just continues over him.

“You’re a hero, Barry, and I get that you want to save everyone, but you need people to save you too. And I am trying so, so hard to save what’s left of my best friend.”

He starts crying at that, and then, for the first time since the funeral, they just hold onto each other.

“Come on,” she tells him, “Let’s go home.”

And they do.

And they all eat dinner together and watch bad television at 1 in the morning and laugh and talk and it feels like they’re making up for all the lost time of the summer. And she falls asleep in the crook of his healed arm and when they wake up in the morning Barry realizes he wants to wake up like this for the rest of his life.

The shock of why he’s been avoiding her hits him again.

Because she can’t possibly want him now, not when his hands remain red with blood even after he takes his suit off.

“Iris,” he mumbles and she stirs against his chest.

“What is it, Bar?”

“It’s my fault that Eddie’s dead.”

“Nonononono.” She murmurs, clutching tightly to his arms wrapped around her front. “It’s mine.”

And now they both know that they blame each other but neither wants to fight over a loss together, so instead, he holds onto her like a lifeline.

And maybe, if he listens hard enough, he can hear a declaration of love in the way she sighs contentedly against him.

 

**September**

 

The road trip has commenced again, with the pull to Santa Cruz having left them, and so they pack up the few things they’ve collected while there, like spoons and sheets and that one towel that Oliver really loves, and sell the rest, along with the house, and make their way to San Francisco.

They stay in hotels and tour around the city, going from place to place and she’s especially in love with the Palace of Fine arts, so they stay in a hotel around there. And she likes to go there with him at night and one night there’s a band playing under the archways and she practically drags him out there because she’s wearing this new sleeveless white a-line dress and she wants to go dancing, and she convinces him to dance under the stars.

And okay, maybe they’re both a little drunk on the pink champagne that they’d drank earlier, or maybe the buzz is coming from each other’s company, still not tiring or boring or even remotely formulaic.

When the music stops they keep dancing, and he spins her around in circles and the white panels of her skirt fly out, and she feels like maybe they’re not just Oliver and Felicity, maybe they’re in a scene from some old movie, because nothing this great and wonderful and perfect can exist in real life.

And when she’s drunk on his nearness she can almost ignore the empty void in her chest that’s been growing and growing throughout this whole thing. The desire not only to find a purpose again, but the homesickness she’d never quite felt before.

She didn’t miss Vegas when she left for MIT. She never missed Boston when she left for Starling, but, only a few hundred miles away from Starling, she feels homesick for the first time in her life. Felicity wonders if Oliver could possibly feel the same.

“Hey, you okay?” He asks her, suddenly stopping their dance.

“Yeah.” She shakes off the feeling. _I’m just missing Starling a bit_. “Just tired.”

“Too tired for those white-chocolate squares?”

“Never too tired for white-chocolate squares.” _But when are we going to go home?_

They do eat the white-chocolate squares, most of them off of each other, but then they sleep.

When she wakes up, he’s out, says he’s buying some things for them to make dinner, because they’d talked about trying to make Italian the other night, in honor of their first date. She walks down to the Palace again, reveling in the cool feeling of the shade, and then deciding she needed counsel.

Counsel from someone who might understand. From someone who knows what it’s like to have everything and still not feel quite complete.

 

XXX

 

His phone is ringing. And it’s Felicity.

They haven’t talked in months. To be fair, she’s been fairly busy. And he’s been… recuperating.

“Hey, Barry…” She starts and she sounds… nervous, maybe? Unsure. Lost and wandering, like maybe he’s not the only one who’s been doing some soul searching this summer.

“Hey, Felicity. How’s the honeymooning?”

“We’re not _married._ ”

“Close enough. Well, Central City is now wormhole free, so if you guys wanna stop by, we’d love to see you.”

“We’ll see. At this rate it looks like we’re moving South.”

“Are you ever coming back?”

That question hits her hard, he can tell. Because, as far as he’d known when she’d first taken off, the plan was to just drive. The idea of returning, of coming home, hadn’t even seemed to have crossed her mind.

“I hope so.” She finally manages, like it’s a secret and he’s the only one who knows.

“How are you, Barry?”

“I’m doing okay.” _Lonely. Suffering. Wishing you would come back and help me out because you have a way of spinning the situation into one that makes sense._ “How about you?”

“Happy. A little homesick maybe.”

“Weren’t you the one spouting all that stuff about ‘home is a person not a place’ a few weeks ago?”

“I miss vigilante-ing. I miss having a purpose. I miss late nights in the foundry and the sense of doing something good and right in the world.”

“Well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Barry, I’ve seen the news, you saved a _ton_ of people. You’re a hero.”

“All I did was let someone die. Eddie’s the one who saved everyone.”

“There can be more than one hero in this story.”

“But it’s still not me.”

She laughs a bit at that, and it’s good-natured, but Barry doesn’t quite understand why. “You sound like Oliver. After Tommy died. When we brought him back from the island. All _everything-is-my-fault-I-must-be-alone._ ”

“Well, guys like us don’t get the girl.” He jokes bitterly, Oliver’s words from a year ago still ringing in his head.

And then he remembers who he’s talking to and can hear Felicity freeze over the phone. “What in the world gave you that idea?”

“Oliver offered up that friendly piece of advice last time the two of you were in town. And… I mean, it’s true. You guys didn’t get together until he gave up the Arrow.”

“Barry I swear on my life I would’ve been with him a lot sooner if he had gotten his head out of his ass. It had nothing to do with the Arrow, but he wanted to give it up, so I didn’t fight him.”

“His reasons make sense, though. I couldn’t live with myself if… if Iris...:”

“If Iris gets in trouble again, which she undoubtedly will since the entirety of Central City and most of Starling knows that she’s connected to the Flash, she can handle herself. We’re not as fragile as you think.”

“I know I just…”

“And I promise, if anything happens to her I will fly you to Nanda Parbat myself and we will bring her back to life.”

Finally he cracks a smile at that. “So where are you guys now?”

“San Francisco.” She replies, drawing out the _cisco_. “Speaking of, did Cisco tell you him and Laurel are having a thing?”

“No! What kind of thing?”

“I don’t know, she won’t give me details, but apparently it’s at least a flirtationship, judging by the snapchats Thea was sending me.”

“He’d tell me if he was dating the Black Canary, right?”

“Well if he didn’t, _I would_.”

There’s a pause as Barry contemplates what to say next, not quite sure whether or not he should let his mouth betray his thoughts, but he’s lonely and he misses her so he says it anyway.

“Come home, Felicity.”

“Barry… _I can’t…_ ”

  
But god, does she wish she could.


End file.
